Okay, you know things are bad when your last update says 'Monday October 16th' when it should have read Wednesday... I need to be smacked. Does anyone want to volunteer?

Oh well, that's what I get for being overloaded with work lately. So much, in fact, that I keep forgetting some things, letting things slip my mind... not this column, mind you. In that case, I've been in need of material, you neglectful bastards who keep forgetting to write me.

Yeah, so game playing has been next to nil lately, other than getting my ass kicked around by Kingdom Hearts and a few feeble attempts at Hard Mode 1P ...things in SSBM. I'm hoping that my asskicking in Kingdom Hearts was due to the fact that my TV completely blows (and that I should be playing on that lovely 27" Trinitron downstairs), because if not, well, ain't my self esteem crushed. :P Baaaah. I've been really wanting Suikoden III, which should be on store shelves by the time you read this, however, I couldn't live with the guilt of borrowing two different games from two different people and going out, buying and playing something entirely different.

I'm looking forward to Sui3 because it looks to have a lot of features from one of my favorite rpgs of all time, Skies of Arcadia.

Keep in mind that I not be a previous Sui gamer, so I don't know how cool/uncool the past games were. (but I've taken a hint from the massive overflow of letters, previews, etc., on various gaming sites talkin about how truly awesome they are, so I'll take everyone's word for it.)

Anyway, SOA (one of the most underrated RPGs IMO) featured some cool sheist that will be likewise featured in Sui3: building your own base, recruiting a crew for both the base and battles, multiple scales of battles (SOA had regular and ship battles, sui3 has regular, duel, and army v. army battles), and good graphics.

Aye, you need not ask how good the past two Suikoden installments were, as its legions (or cult? Which fits better? :P) will tell you in an instant, and then proceed to insist that you play both. If you're really into a great story though, Suikoden will fit your bill just perfectly. I hope you find it to be worth it...

Ah, Skies of Arcadia... the one Dreamcast RPG I wanted but never got close enough to, other than Record of Lodoss War. Needless to say I was a tad unaware of its similarities to Suikoden... but now I'm all the more curious. Before anyone starts hollering at me to play SoA, though, rest assured I'm waiting on the GameCube port. Or... something.

Long Kingdom Hearts rant ahead.

Uh, just curious... Did Kingdom Hearts take more than, oh, 10 or 15 hours to finally begin to pick up or is it just me? :x I mean... I liked the beginning part after the dumb little "tutorial", other than the annoying scavenger hunts, but then once you get in to that first little town, it becomes very vague as to where they expect you to go, the battles get to be tedious off the bat, and there's not near enough character interaction, which is the whole highlight of the game. So up until you walk into the coloseum... The game just doesn't have a very good start. :p Now, I'll admit that once I saw Cloud's delicious cape and sword (of which I've done fanart for and sent in just now, let's hope it gets put up, search for me name! *advertise advertise*) and fought off the big three headed puppy I was a bit more interested, and then after I got out of Tarzan's crappy little jungle I was finally starting to feel happier with my choice of game, but it sure did take long enough. Battles have picked up with the incorporation of stronger spells and abilities (although it seems they enjoy giving you an ability that's useless in the very next area pretty often [high jump anyone?]) and the later areas seem to have better storylines and more involved enemies, although I still would rather be soloing since, other than for healing me, the party members seem to just get in the freaking way. I do love those few key scenes where they do a great job of animating their mouths to what they're saying, although it spoils you when in the next two camera changes they're back to having their mouth move with 3 frames of animation or so. :P And the music.... Well, it's good, but it doesn't change enough. You're stuck with the same 2 tracks or so in each world for faaar too long...

Well, this isn't to say I don't like the game, I think it is fun to play and to see all of these different characters interact, and I've had a good few laughs at just the random weird stuff thrown around, plus the whole gummi ship thing is genius. ;P I just think Square coulda done alot better with the beginning chunk and with a few things here and there, but we'll see if my opinion changes as I play more through the game. Aaaaanyways... you said something about anime. So.. CHIIIIIII!!!

-Poojipoo

Eh... I thought Kingdom Hearts was progressing fine from the start, but I still haven't gotten 15 hours into the game, so what do I know? All I know is that Traverse Town doesn't seem to like me so far... as far as the character interaction, well... yeah, I agree that so far there could be more, but seeing as the last RPG I completed was Final Fantasy X, well... :P The extra spells and abilities you get later on do seem like fun, as I've watched others play, but I purposely avoided any story bits of the game, so I uh, can't really comment on what I haven't seen. Oh well, at least I'm hearing that the ending is good. Agrabah seems like fun, but then, I'm a huge Aladdin fan, so that's a bit of a bias right there. I heard the Little Mermaid themed area... whatever it's called, is a bit trying, and Hallowe'en Town looks downright fun. As for the party members, isn't there an option like in Secret of Mana as to what you want the other party members to do (like evade more often, not attack, etc...)? That kind of option would only make sense to me. Now I'm recalling memories of Mike griping about Donald Duck letting him get his ass kicked around... I can at least vouch for the repetitive music bit though. Too many games have that problem, anyway...

Heh. The Gummi ship building looks way too fun, and read the next letter for proof of what 'too much fun' defines. Whoo hoo.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Hey,

So you wanna see my cat gummie ship eh? Well, here's a few pictures. Uh...tada!

My my, isn't that disturbing... though I admit, really creative. :P What's with the eyes though? If any real cat had eyes like that, I'd run off into the other direction screaming. Yep, yep.

Man, I've been seeing some really neat original ships... make sme wonder if I'll ever come up with anything nearly as good. (Though I'd like to build something similar to Id's Gear in Xenogears.. *cackle*)

You didn't eat your cat for dinner, did you?

Final Fantasy X-2... Hm. I think it's a horrible idea. The sound of a sequel to Final Fantasy X sounded wonderful at first, but then I went to toastyfrog.com and saw that picture of gunslingin' Yuna. I thought it was just some silly thing Nomura did on his free time, like the FFVII character collage he did with everyone looking like they were drawn by children. A few days later, I'd learn the horrible truth: that ugly picture of Yuna was actually part of the FFX sequel!

And from the logo, it seems Yuna, Lulu, and Rikku are the main characters, and they're all going slutty dominatrix on us. I do not approve of this drastic change. Especially Yuna. Yuna was shy, timid, docile... and now she is the complete opposite. It's like a new Duke Nukem game where Duke goes out to help the homeless, become a mentor for foster children, cleans up garbage off the side of the highway, plants trees, and says no to killing whales! That puts a damper on the whole thing for me. There's also the strange name, but that's not nearly as bad.

In my opinion, FFX-2 is a horribly planned out idea. A great idea in itself, but the way it's going, it doesn't look like it'll be all that I hoped for. Yeah, I heard, Rikku TOLD Yuna to wear those things, and maybe the guns are simply because Yuna can't summon anymore. But why do Rikku and Lulu also have to go the way of the fan-service as well?

It'll take ALL my patience to get through this one. I also wanna know why Rikku, Lulu, and Yuna are on the freaking logo. What was on the logo for every Final Fantasy was symbolic for something very important in the story. FFVII, it was Meteor, which would end up destroying the Planet. FFVIII, it was Squall and Rinoa, whom the story was based very much upon. In FFIX, it was the crystal itself, the origin of life, and how it would become threatened to be destroyed at the end. FFX, it was Yuna, who was very much important to the game, because if it weren't for her, no one would have quested to destroy Sin, and they wouldn't have figured out how to actually defeat him.

So my question is, how are dominatrix Rikku, Lulu, and Yuna important to the story? I just need to remind myself to be patient with this seemingly massive failure... It'll all be revealed and turn good in time... It has to. Square's never made a mistake once.

Right? Right??

~ Snifit 2

Eh... it COULD work, since all we really know are a few scant details, and all we've seen are a handful of initial screens... but I guess the first impression is always the lasting one, ne? I like the character designs, though they don't much fit the characters themselves, especially Yuna's. I hope that the change in weapons.. outfits, well, everything concerning those three is explained well in the game, because otherwise it'll just be seen as some gimmick with little backup as to why things are why they are here. Heh. Rikku and Lulu's changes aren't so dramatic, so it's mainly Yuna I'm wondering about here. I don't know if losing her abilities to summon is really a worthwhile explanation as to why she carries guns now, since, well, she had a staff beforehand, did she not?

And wait, what's this about Rikku telling Yuna to dress like that? I'm lost. :P Good point about the logo though... maybe that whole importance dealie will also be shown in the story. And hopefully some other plausible explanations as well. Me, I'm just hoping for as good of a story as the first game. I do know I'll really miss the summon sequences... especially Shiva and Bahamut. And Ifrit. Though again, what we've seen and heard is so little, there might be a whole lot more in store for us... and come March, for me. Yay for import systems.

...what the heck?

-rpgfan-

Well do you know any thing about Grandia Xtreme? I just got the game and when i put it into my ps2 well it reads it as a spirder man DVD of some type do you know any thing about this? People told me that they were being recalled but the guy at the store says thats a lie. well if you could let me know any thing it would be nice thanks.

-Greg-

I've asked several different people, and they've heard of no such problem. The only problems I've heard of are the game sucking, bu that's a whole other story and an opinion I won't vouch for since I don't really plan on buying the game. Also, since we have a contact with Enix, we would have been sent a press release or some such, if the game was to be recalled. Though if anyone else reading this has had the same... bizarre problem, let me know. :P

Mike who?

Dear Liz,

Due to my comp being out I haven't looked at rpgfan for months then when I come back I have to ask my self were the f*ck did Chronoligist go the old jack a$$ was friggin awesome what the hell happened to him?

Jeff Davis

Easy. He got tired of being a jackass and doing my job for me. :P Actually, he did take some sort of hiatus from the site for a while... now he just does behind the scenes stuff. Like graphics, graphics and more graphics. Oh, and the release dates page. And maybe some other things I'm forgetting... I think I'll be going now.

Closing Thoughts

So I finally updated the topic as per the most interesting news tidbit to come our way in weeks, maybe months. And if you don't care about FFX-2, then write me about something else. More Kingdom Hearts gummi ship screens would be interesting, actually. But I know that a lot of you must have something to say about Square's first direct FF sequel ever, so let me hear it.

For that matter, I also updated the FAQ. Blah.

~ Liz, who comes with six Quick Picks and one Extra. And a chance at $10 million. (letters@rpgfan.com)